ROME — On its 45th anniversary, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical that upheld the Church’s teaching on birth control is “incredibly up-to-date,” especially because it raises “the problem of a technocracy” which is “the main problem of our culture and our society,” says Bishop Mario Toso.

Bishop Toso, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said in a July 25 interview that the problems raised by technology is “a global social question. It goes beyond the relation of mankind with creation and the manipulation of life.”

Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth) on July 25, 1968, in the midst of rapid social and moral changes that were brought on by the widespread availability of contraceptives and the sexual revolution that swept through Western societies.

The encyclical created a strong reaction, particularly in the United States.

Many expected that Paul VI would follow the suggestion of the majority of the experts on the panel he assembled and approve the use of contraception, at least for married couples.

Instead, Paul VI reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that new life and love, the two fruits of the conjugal union, cannot be separated.

Bishop Toso pointed out that, after 45 years, the debate is still focused on the contraception issue, but the real issue being discussed is the nature of human beings.

The topics and issues developed in Humanae Vitae form the roots of the concept of integral human development, that is, the idea that the entire person must be cared for and cannot be separated into compartments.

This was backed up in Benedict XVI’s social encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” which “clearly considers Humanae Vitae a fundamental basis for social ethics and for integral and inclusive development,” he said.

Bishop Toso also stressed, “The question of the technical mindset is enlarged well beyond the question of human nature in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, where it is linked to the question of culture, poverty and human ecology.”

This is why “the true social issue” today is about how our way of thinking is being effected by technology.

According to Bishop Toso, the spread of technology has come into conflict with the principles of Humanae Vitae in “two important ways.”

The first is the perception of procreation being changed by technological and medical developments.

Bishop Toso noted, “When the generated child is considered a mere product, the couple is deprived of the finality of welcoming a new life, which is one of the most important finalities of the family.”

The second way technology has challenged the teachings of the Church is by making sexual differences something that can be subjective.

Benedict XVI spoke about the “philosophy of gender” in his last address to the Roman Curia for Christmas, on Dec. 12, 2012.

He noted that, according to the philosophy of gender, “sex is no longer a given element of nature that man has to accept and personally make sense of: It is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society.”

This led human beings to deny their “own nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.”

Bishop Toso stressed that behind the international promotion of gender-oriented policies, “there is a project to subvert the social order of society, thus putting in discussion the idea of the human being.”

If one’s sexuality can be chosen, “the idea of family has no content, and it becomes a matter of no importance if there is a family made up of man and woman and open to procreation or if the family is just the consequence of a contract.”

“If man cannot live the family as a natural vocation, how can he welcome the natural vocation of belonging to the wider human family?” Bishop Toso said. These are the roots of an “absolutely relativistic way of thinking.”

Bishop Toso recalled, “In the 'Message for the World Day of Peace 2013,' Benedict XVI affirmed that ‘the precondition for peace is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism and of the supposition of a completely autonomous morality.’”

The mission of dismantling the dictatorship of relativism, he insisted, “must be carried on in every area of social life. All Christians are called to this urgent and important commitment.”

Comments

John, read May’s post - she says it all, much better than I could. You seem to helplessly adhere to the idea that all people, including Catholics in the pews, are dumb ‘low information’ voters who cannot comprehend complex ideas. Perhaps you are right, but we need to try to appeal to the intellect and higher faculties of man in our evangelization efforts. BTY, the label ‘low information voters’ was not penned by Rush Limbaugh, but by an Ivy League (and presumably liberal elite) professor. We are impoverished as a society by all the unthinking folks who vote for demagogues promising ‘free stuff’ and easy moral ‘freedoms’ like consequence-free sex. HV was brilliant and prescient.

Posted by Don L on Saturday, Jul 27, 2013 4:55 PM (EDT):

A history lesson:

‘Humanae Vitae’ was the Paul Revere of mankind, and they laughed as he rode by…and the forces of evil had their way.

Posted by Lorenzo on Saturday, Jul 27, 2013 3:50 PM (EDT):

John, you sound like a “quitter”.

Posted by p.deubler on Saturday, Jul 27, 2013 3:15 PM (EDT):

Thanks for this brilliant piece!!!!

Posted by Dan Tracy on Saturday, Jul 27, 2013 10:00 AM (EDT):

“If man cannot live the family as a natural vocation, how can he welcome the natural vocation of belonging to the wider human family?”

The materialism and frivolous consumerism of the developed world has grown over the past 50years, yet the disparity between the haves and have nots has increased has well.

Contraception has contributed to this as a mindset of looking at one’s partner has been instilled with the notion that the other offers something to be consumed. We were told that contraception would strengthen marriages; however the opposite has unfolded as our natural vocation has been distorted to base consumer instincts.

Pope Paul VI should be canonized solely on the release of Humanae Vitae. Without it the Church would now be in apostasy. Unfortunately, as a consequence of VCII am estimated three fourths of American Catholics are now apostate anyway because they no longer believe in the Real Presence or in Humanae Vitae.

Posted by May on Friday, Jul 26, 2013 1:29 PM (EDT):

I was in high school when this encyclical was released by Pope Paul VI. I went to a Catholic all girls school and we studied this document in our religious class. It was amazing and brilliant. He turned out to be a prophet foretelling that women would be seen as mere sex objects, the abuse of children would become the a big problem, etc. if contraception was accepted as the norm. I am so glad I had this class and it was taught correctly and not dismissed as happened in other places by some priests, religious and lay. Plus I never fell for that “Zero Population” myth and as a result my husband and I were blessed with eight children. We now know that having too few children is the great problem the world faces today. Europe is dying as the population is not being replaced and women are used and abused (and men too if the truth is told), abortion is rampant and, finally, if sex not being open to life is the norm, then homosexual unions can be rationalized as okay which is what we find today. Pope Paul VI was truly God’s prophetic voice on this earth. If only all had listened to him.

Pope Paul VI didn’t write Humanae Vitae—God did. He did this through the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church, through the Bible and the successor to St. Peter.
How can we be so sure??? Because the Bible repeatedly says that prophecies which come true are His words not the words of a false prophet. And virtually every prediction (prophecy) the much maligned Paul VI made in his encyclical has become tragically true.

Posted by Andrew B. on Friday, Jul 26, 2013 12:57 PM (EDT):

Just brilliant article and instruction. I am sharing this right a way.

Posted by John on Friday, Jul 26, 2013 12:03 PM (EDT):

“The mission of dismantling the dictatorship of relativism” What on earth does such a statement mean to the average Catholic in the pews on Sunday - or to the majority who, unfortunately, no longer attend Mass? Such a phrase may appeal to the likes of George Weigel who has a seemingly erudite literary reputation to defend, but to the average Catholic reader or listener it means very little. Surely the bishop only needs to look at the average family size in the pews today, and these are the Catholics who DO go to church, to see that the issue of contraception, since “the debate is still focused on the contraception issue”, is basically already a dead issue for the western Church.

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